Tag: harassment

Essential Reads About Sexual Harassment And Discrimination In Gaming And Tech – Microsoft Purchase Of Activision Blizzard Won’t Clean Up Gamer Culture Overnight
IN OTHER NEWS, TECHNOLOGY

Essential Reads About Sexual Harassment And Discrimination In Gaming And Tech – Microsoft Purchase Of Activision Blizzard Won’t Clean Up Gamer Culture Overnight

Microsoft announced on Jan. 18, 2022, its intention to purchase video game giant Activision Blizzard. The company, publisher of top-selling video games Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush, has been the subject of a series of sexual discrimination and harassment complaints. A day before Microsoft’s announcement, Activision Blizzard announced that it has fired “nearly 40 employees” since July following an investigation into hundreds of reports from employees of misconduct. California sued Activision Blizzard in July 2021, alleging a “pervasive ‘frat boy’ culture” at the company and discrimination against women in pay and promotion. The suit prompted a walkout by company employees who demanded that the company address the problem. The turmoil is an echo of the infamous Gamergate...
Andrew Cuomo And Activision Blizzard Sex Harassment Scandals – 5 #MeToo Takeaways
LIFESTYLE

Andrew Cuomo And Activision Blizzard Sex Harassment Scandals – 5 #MeToo Takeaways

Elizabeth C. Tippett, University of Oregon Tarana Burke’s #MeToo movement has evolved in the four years since it exploded on the national scene with the Weinstein scandal. From a flurry of #MeToo-related headlines in 2017, the movement has now produced a broad array of legal reforms and changes to the way organizations respond to harassment allegations. Two recent high-profile examples – involving New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and video game maker Activision Blizzard – illustrate the power of these reforms. They also show how much employee culture has changed in the intervening years. As a workplace law scholar, I’ve been writing about the #MeToo movement for some time. Here are five takeaways I noticed from both the Cuomo investigation and the Activision Blizzard lawsuit. 1. Due process...
Sexual Harassment And Discrimination In Gaming And Tech – The Activision Blizzard Lawsuit Shows Gamer Culture Still Has A Long Way To Go
Journalism

Sexual Harassment And Discrimination In Gaming And Tech – The Activision Blizzard Lawsuit Shows Gamer Culture Still Has A Long Way To Go

Eric Smalley, The Conversation Sexual harassment in gamer culture burst back into the spotlight on July 21, 2021, with news of California’s lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, publisher of top-selling video games Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush, and a walkout by company employees. The lawsuit alleges a “pervasive ‘frat boy’ culture” at the company and discrimination against women in pay and promotion. The turmoil is an echo of the infamous Gamergate episode of 2014 that featured an organized online campaign of harassment against female gamers, game developers and gaming journalists. The allegations are also of a piece with a decadeslong history of gender discrimination in the technology field. We’ve been covering sexual harassment and gender discrimination in gaming – a...
“Big Girls Don’t Cry” – It Takes a Tough Woman to Withstand Harassment in American Politics
Journalism

“Big Girls Don’t Cry” – It Takes a Tough Woman to Withstand Harassment in American Politics

"BIG GIRLS DON'T CRY. The Election that Changed Everything for American Women." Rebecca Traister. New York: Free Press. In BIG GIRLS DON'T CRY, Rebecca Traister follows key women involved in the 2008 Presidential election, to tell the story "about the country and its culture, how we all reacted to the arrival of these surprising new figures on the presidential stage and what they showed us about how far we had come and how far we had yet to go." She does an extremely good job of reaching that goal for most of us. Traister basic contexts are gender politics (including but not narrowly defined by feminism and misogyny), race (including but not narrowly defined by racism), and inter-generational perspectives. She observes that Hillary Clinton, who would put 18 million cracks in the highes...